"It was empty when Ryder found you?"
She nodded. "Perhaps there were two pictures, one of my mother or father, and one of me. Perhaps, but I don't know. Were the pictures removed because someone might recognize them?" She shrugged. "But it doesn't matter, Nicholas. No one has any idea at all of who I am or who my parents are-or were-or if they're English or Italian. Uncle Ryder believes I'm possibly hath, since when I began speaking, I spoke both Italian and English. Uncle Ryder also believes my parents must be dead" or they would have searched the earth for me. Of course that is what he would do if Grayson disappeared. It's a damnable thing, Nicholas, but I am a blank page."
"No, you're not at all blank. You have an ability that none of us have-you can easily read the Rules of the Pale. This is a gift, so perhaps you come from parents with a similar gift. You've accepted this gift of yours without question. I would say this gift is only one of many."
One of many? Hmm. "So much has happened so quickly. I haven't even wondered why I can read that blasted book." She gave him a pathetic attempt at a smile. "I will ask the ghosts when I next hear them. They come to me less often now. It's odd, but I miss them. It's like they're my only link to my lost past. And now they're giving up on me."
"Ghosts," he repeated. "Ghosts around you."
"You don't think me mad, do you?"
He looked distracted. He drummed his fingertips on the mantelpiece. "Mad? Oh, no. My grandfather, I believe he was intimately acquainted with ghosts, and he wasn't mad, believe me." He shrugged. "To be honest, I suppose I assumed you were of my class. Say we discover you aren't, Rosalind. What does that mean in the long course of events? Not much of anything. My own father was a weak man, manipulated by my stepmother, but vicious as only a weak man can be. Whoever you are doesn't matter to me. You 'reRosalind de La Fontaine. You will shortly be mine, Rosalind Vail, the Countess of Mountjoy."
"You cannot be so noble, Nicholas, so elevated in your spirit, you cannot-"
"Hush. That's quite enough. Let's be sensible here. You would like to know who you really are. I am acquainted with many different sorts of people from all over the world. I will have your portrait painted, perhaps a dozen miniatures, and I will have them sent out. We will discover who your parents were, Rosalind. Or, perhaps, one morning you will wake up next to me, and smile, and you will remember. I quite understand why your Uncle Ryder and Uncle Douglas stopped the search. But you will not worry about anyone ever hurting you again. I will protect you with my life."
Rosalind turned and ran out of the drawing room.
15
"Rosalind!"
"My lord, Miss Rosalind scampered out of the house. Are you responsible for this, my lord? Did you insult that sweet young pullet?" Willicombe, all puffed up, actually barred Nicholas's way.
"The pullet has nothing but air between her pretty ears. She ran out for no reason at all." Nicholas lifted Willicombe beneath his armpits, set him down to one side, and ran after her through the open front door. He paused when he saw a flash of her blue skirt swing around the corner.
He heard a yell and a shout. He came around the corner at a dead run to see her on her backside on the sidewalk, skirts billowed about her. Beside her sat a heavy matron, flushed to her eyebrows, hat askew, a lovely ruffled petticoat fluffed up about her knees, parcels scattered around her, her mouth open to yell again.
Nicholas quickly helped the woman to her feet, not an easy task, and gathered her parcels for her.
Chins wobbled as she shook her fist at Rosalind. "I am
Mrs. Pratt, sir, and I am the wife of Deacon Pratt of Pear Tree Lane. This young lady, sir, came flying out at me, fair to sending me to my maker, and it's Deacon Pratt who wants that pleasure. Lucky it was that my precious pork knivers didn't scatter themselves on the dirty ground. If she's your wife, sir, you need to clout her good."
"Yes, she is my wife, but she doesn't deserve a clout in this instance, ma'am, since it is my fault she was running and had the dreadful misfortune to hit you."
Mrs. Pratt crossed ample arms over her equally ample bosom and tapped her puce-colored boots. "Is that so? And what did you do, sir, to make this sweet young lady flee from you?"
"Well, I must be honest here, Mrs. Pratt. You deserve honesty. The fact is she isn't yet my wife. The second fact is that I asked her to marry me but she doesn't feel she's good enough for me, which is absurd. All right, I admit that if you look at her now, ma'am, sitting there rubbing her rear parts, looking as though she wants to burst into tears and scream at me at the same time, perhaps you'd agree with her. But standing upright or waltzing, an enchanting smile on her face, she's very fine indeed and will do me proud. And when she marries me, I will surely keep her from running over respectable ladies out doing their shopping."
"I've never eaten a pork kniver," Rosalind said.
The woman eyed Rosalind with disfavor. "You likely don't deserve one. Marry him or I will introduce him to my sweet nieces, who would never consider taking a single step away from him. Just look at him-he has all his teeth and nice and white they are, and there is no fat hanging off his middle, unlike Deacon Pratt, who wears a very wide belt to hold himself into his shirts. I have told him repeatedly not to be a glutton, but he looks at me and says a man must take his pleasure where he can. The gall, I tell him. Marry him, missy, marry him."
Rosalind stared up at Nicholas, wringing her hands again. "But, Nicholas-"
"You're not getting any younger," the woman said. "If I show him my nieces, he might turn his back on you fast enough. My little Lucretia is only seventeen."
Since Rosalind ignored Nicholas's outstretched hand, he turned to say to Mrs. Pratt, "Pray accept my apologies, ma'am, but she will wed me and thus I will not be available to make the acquaintance of Lucretia." Nicholas gave her a marvelous bow and a fat smile that made her chins wobble anew. Mrs. Pratt gave him a look that Rosalind now recognized as fast-crumbling female principles, and said, just this side of a simper, "Perhaps my lovely Lucretia is on the young side for you, sir, perhaps it is an older, more experienced lady who would suit you"-she patted the fat sausage curls over her ears then stared down at Rosalind with a good deal of antipathy-"not this harebrained knot-head who ran away from you."
"But you caught the knot-head for me, ma'am, and I thank you."
"Only in a very remote manner of speaking, sir. Well, now, I suppose there was no harm done." And Mrs. Pratt, all her parcels tucked beneath her arms, was gone with one long wistful backwards look at Nicholas and a sneer at Rosalind.
He stood over her, hands on hips. "Do you really want to sacrifice me to Mrs. Pratt's niece Lucretia?"
"She's only seventeen. You could mold her."
"You're only eighteen and I would rather mold you. Are you all right?"
"It is about time you inquired. No, I'm humiliated, and you had to rub my nose in it with your fine conversation with Mrs. Pratt."
"One must consider all Offers. I'm sorry to say this, but you deserved to be humiliated. Would you care to tell me why you bolted, or was I right on the mark?"
She looked away from him. "I simply couldn 't bear it."
"Bear what, for heaven's sake?"
"Your-your nobility."
He could but stare at her. "If only you knew," he said finally. He reached down a hand and jerked her up and into him, hard.
She said, her breath warm on his chin, "It's depressing, my lord. I cannot even execute a dramatic exit with any style at all. Blessed hell, I wish I'd scattered that dreadful woman's wretched pork knivers in the street. What is a pork kniver?"